


Ghost Stories, Feelings, and Other Scary Things

by Checkerbox



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Mostly Fluff, The Chateau d'Onterre, another blowing off steam piece, was begun as one thing and finished as something else entirely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 00:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20023180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Checkerbox/pseuds/Checkerbox
Summary: A haunted manor isn’t necessarily the best place to be holed up in when you’re trying to get in out of a sudden storm in the Graves.Dorian thinks that Trevelyan doesn’t take this kind of thing seriously enough.





	Ghost Stories, Feelings, and Other Scary Things

Dorian initially thought to himself that he should never have given in to his morbid curiosity and accompanied Trevelyan on this hunting trip in the Emerald Graves.

The chain of logic was fairly simple. If he hadn’t gone along, he wouldn’t have gotten caught out in a sudden, unforeseen downpour that was to such an intense degree that the Maker himself was surely trying to flood them out. They wouldn’t have darted through the foliage trying to find shelter before the storm killed them, and they wouldn’t have stumbled upon the worn-down, abandoned Chateau d’Onterre. They wouldn’t have darted inside, dripping like drowned rats, and they wouldn’t have been standing in the chilly entranceway looking for some light when the doors suddenly and irrevocably swung shut—and then Dorian in particular would not be in this hell.

But then he realized that if he hadn’t accompanied him, the Inquisitor would probably have gotten trapped in this mansion _alone_ and Dorian would be in an entirely different kind of hell.

It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. He might have loathed wilderness, but he still remembered the look on Trevelyan’s face the first time they saw the bright, luscious green forest, and that pure, innocent happiness that had nothing to do with slaughter or macabre topics was a precious thing he dearly wanted to see again.

Well. Perhaps if he saw it too often, it would be less special.

He should have demanded they find some way to get out of there the second the fireplace flared up all on its own, illuminating the scattered corpses of looters before them. But Trevelyan had gotten excited again, finding clues in the dead men’s pockets like it was some sort of treasure hunt, and—well, Dorian had never really possessed a good sense regarding adventure himself. So off they went. Breaking down some doors, picking the locks on others as the wind howled disapprovingly.

Occasionally hearing the sound of a little girl giggling in the distance, so faint as to potentially be imagined.

It had been easy to remain flippant at first. Easy enough to sink into his disdain, indulge his curiosity as he outwardly played the suffering tag-along to Trevelyan’s little treasure hunt amidst the rain pounding on the windows around them, the occasional boom of lightning.

But as stranger things started happening, books flying in their direction, footsteps and shadows where there was no one, windows and doors refusing to open, he began to grow tense. They’d been there for three hours, the sun (if indeed there still existed a sun behind that thick mass of clouds in the sky) having likely dropped below the horizon by now. And he had to constantly keep on watch. Not of the area around them. But of Trevelyan.

If it was Dorian alone, he had nothing to fear from magic. Even the kind that couldn’t be explained, he had confidence that if he only applied himself everything would come together into an orderly and easy to unravel solution. Spirits, demons, hexes, blood magic—he’d steeled himself against anything that Tevinter could throw at him, and the rest of the world was little match.

But Trevelyan was different. He hadn’t grown up in this world of magic. Instead he had spent his life covetously reading of it, and as a result he was unfortunately drawn to danger like a moth to a flame. There was a lot that Dorian and the other mages in their party had taught him, trying to instill him some sense of caution. …But it only seemed to make his fascinations worse.

Sometimes he wondered if the man knew just how often Dorian’s little heart attacks stemmed from _him_ , and not the slamming of doors or juvenile little whispers of a child’s voice on the furthest edges of their hearing.

Even if the rest of all that was still creepy in its own right.

Eventually, after all this time spent with no luck in finding either the hidden treasure that the dead looters were after or getting out of the mansion that had locked them inside, they had to admit defeat. It was too late in the evening to come up with the solution today. They would need to find a place to sleep for the night.

But, just because they hadn’t encountered anything animate inside the manor didn’t mean there wasn’t anything to be found. They still couldn’t get to the far balcony, after all.

There was a guest bedroom just off the stairwell, something lavish and still as the grave. Ever the gentleman, Trevelyan took on the task of barricading the door himself, moving a dresser and one treasure chest in the way, muscles straining. Dorian would have helped, but, well…he was busy watching.

Admittedly, he was also busy setting wards to keep any potential spirits from entering, which was important too. And then it was Trevelyan doing the admiring, once he’d finished with the furniture and lit a few candles to give him light to work with.

“If I touch them, will it—”

Dorian lightly slapped his hand—lightly because this was a game that Trevelyan liked to play, the damnable imp having no intention of actually interfering with the enchantment but looking instead to provoke a reproach. “Tsk tsk. One of these days Amatus you’re going to hurt yourself, and then I will _laugh._ ”

He grinned back. “Then it will have been worth it, won’t it?”

Dorian rolled his eyes, too tense after the day’s happenings to laugh but unable to keep himself from smiling a little either. “Awfully chipper considering we’re going to be spending the rest of our lives trapped in this empty place.”

“Oh please. It’s only been a day. That’s hardly forever. Odds are we’re dealing with some kind of demon infestation. We’re good at killing demons,” he said as he peeled off the outer jacket of his armor. “Once they’re dead I’m sure we’ll be able to leave.”

“You have no idea of the kind of magics involved here, yet you sound so certain.”

He leveled a smirk Dorian’s way as he moved to unfasten the outer layer of his robe for him. “Oh? And what does the magic expert think, then?”

The rain-chilled air was cool against his newly exposed skin, even indoors, and he shivered as he spoke. “…Well, the demon slaying would probably solve the issue, yes. Assuming we can find one. _Assuming_ that’s even the cause.”

“You think it could be something else?”

Dorian frowned at him, pacing over to the end of the room away from the door. There were various knickknacks, statuettes and dolls on display, made of porcelain and ceramic and carved marble. He turned around one of them with particularly bright glass eyes so that it was no longer facing them. “I don’t know. I don’t usually go traipsing about in haunted summer chateaus.”

“That’s fair.”

There was a soft silence, filled with the white noise of rain as Trevelyan worked on getting the shutters open for the large gilded windows. At least some light made it through, whatever hadn’t been smothered by clouds. There must have been a full moon out, wherever it was. It softened the candle glow admirably.

In the stillness Trevelyan said finally, voice oddly solemn, “You know what it probably is?”

“Hm?”

He turned around, and there was the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. “It’s probably the little mage girl’s ghost.”

Dorian lifted a brow. “Oh, is it?” His voice dripped with wry amusement. “I did think all the pot-throwing and door-slamming seemed a bit juvenile.”

Trevelyan crossed over to where most of their candles were concentrated, growing calm in countenance and subdued in tone. “You read those books we found upstairs, didn’t you? The little notes written in the margins. One can only imagine what further horrors the parents of that little girl inflicted on her that went unrecorded.”

That was true. Dorian recalled that part of their search with a bit of discomfort, remembering the flare of anger that had arisen when he saw the kind of “mage remedies” they’d discovered. Trevelyan as usual was desensitized to such madness.

Evidently, his mother had done worse to his sister before the Templars took her away.

“Eventually, she must have had enough.” As he spoke, he slipped off one of his gloves and licked his fingers, pinching out the little flames guttering near them. “In a fit of rage and pain, she must have summoned her powers and brought her household to their knees. Perhaps she simply killed them all, leeching the life from their bones.”

Dorian scoffed. “As if a mere child would have so advanced a grasp of entropy magic.”

Trevelyan eyed him, the façade breaking just a moment, before he amended smoothly, “Or, more likely, she made a contract with a demon that was drawn in by her vivid pain.”

Feasible. Dorian swallowed and sat down in one of the plush chairs assorted around the room. It was too soft, the cushion a paltry attempt to make up for the hardness of the chair frame.

As he continued, Trevelyan slipped off his other glove and extinguished two more candles. The light of the anchor on his palm was slowly overtaking the candlelight as the brightest source of illumination in the room. “The demon offered her something she didn’t understand, granting her the power to take revenge on her tormentors. It swallowed their souls down and turned them to puppets—perhaps forcing their bodies to walk, stiff limbed and frozen-eyed, right into the little pond out there. Do you think if we searched it, we’d find their waterlogged corpses?”

“I think if we searched perhaps we would find your sense of respect for the dead.”

Dorian couldn’t help smiling a little at the display. Even as the thought of Trevelyan being anywhere near another demon made his insides flip.

Approaching, Trevelyan picked up the final candle, holding it below his chin and allowing the light to cast eerie shadows on his features. His teeth glinted in the light like little knives. “Spent, the girl was then consumed by the demon herself, warped and twisted until all that remained was her spirit. Forever young. Forever suffering. She probably wanders these halls now. Watching. Plotting. Waiting for a life to steal, so that she might rise once more, and wreak her unholy vengeance on the world.”

And then, as he finished those last words, he softly blew out the candle.

The ghost story was far too outlandish and childish to actually scare Dorian, but the intensity of Trevelyan’s gaze in the moonlight did tie his tongue. He remained where he sat, inspecting the dark expression on the Inquisitor’s face and feeling a tingling along his skin that likely had only a little to do with fear.

They were interrupted by the crack of the window shutters slamming shut again, plunging them once more in a moonless darkness. He wasn’t proud of how high he jumped.

Trevelyan started laughing uproariously, and Dorian relit their candles with a snap of his fingers. “You are positively _ghoulish_ , do you know that?”

“Y-yeheh-hes.” The helpless giggling that Trevelyan usually reserved for the aftermath of brutally butchering their enemies provided at least a little comfort, even if Dorian ended up smacking him with one of the throw pillows for it. The strike just seemed to make it worse, and he collapsed back to sit on the bed in stitches.

He folded his arms and leaned back in the chair, watching him struggle to contain himself. When he had finally succeeded Dorian said, a little biting to make up for the flush on his cheeks, “You are in far too good a mood considering our circumstances.”

“Our circumstances? Spending the night in a lavish mansion with an engaging mystery to look into?”

“We’re stormed into a gaudily decorated demon infested hell pit with no one but each other.”

Trevelyan held up his hand and counted off as he spoke. “I like rain. I like demons. I like the abominable curtains. And I like you.” He paused, waggling his brows once. “I love you, even.”

Dorian’s heart seized, and he felt a flush of anger instead at the shock. “You’re impossible. Are you capable of taking _anything_ seriously?”

“What? That I like demons? You know I don’t mean it like tha--”

“No!” Of course he wouldn’t understand. It was just another thing he said, another thing he didn’t take seriously enough. And Dorian got it, he really did. It was easier. He would be a hypocrite if he said he didn’t downplay things too, make a game of it. But it didn’t work anymore. At some point playing it off had grown nearly impossible. “Saying you love me.”

“Wh--tha—" Blindsided, Trevelyan sputtered for a moment before leaning forward, bangs hanging over his face. “You’re upset at me telling you _I love you?_ ”

“ _Yes._ ”

It occurred to him as there was no immediate reply that perhaps he hadn’t communicated adequately what it was about that that bothered him.

Trevelyan said after some consideration, slowly, “I think your nerves are getting to you, Dorian. I take responsibility—I shouldn’t have been talking about ghosts, it’s clearly got you all worked up.” Infuriatingly, he was still joking. The corner of his mouth was just a bit curved, just that little sign that he was speaking to amuse himself instead of to actually have a conversation.

“ _You_. It’s _you_ who’s got me all worked up.” Dorian stood from where he was sitting, beginning to pace a little and ruin the intricate carpet as he spoke. “With your ‘can I touch this’, and ‘what if we broke in there’, and ‘wouldn’t this be a grand spot to get possessed’. The last thing I need when we’re traipsing through a mansion possibly infested with demons and corpses is to hear that from you.”

Trevelyan’s voice didn’t harden at that so much as attain a kind of indignant, childish anger. “I don’t know what the big deal is. I’ve told you I love you before.”

“Oh yes, fluffy declarations right after a night of passion are _certainly_ the same thing,” Dorian shot back, voice practically dripping with sarcasm. “I know that it’s just _words_ to you but I can’t be that flippant about them. I’ve tried.”

That seemed to startle him, and for a few uncomfortable seconds neither of them said anything to the other. Then, with the same grave severity that accompanied a pronouncement of execution, Trevelyan gazed straight into Dorian’s eyes and said, voice low, “I wouldn’t _say it_ if I didn’t _mean it_.”

Dorian’s mouth went dry.

“Oh.”

Thunder boomed from the raging storm outside. Ears perking, Trevelyan glanced towards the shuttered windows, the grim wrinkling on his brow easing to simple surprise. The rain had picked up again, droplets pattering against the windows in a steady rhythm.

Quietly, as though to himself, he said, “I swear, for trusting me to run an entire organization, everyone in this little group of ours treats me like some sort of child. I understand danger. I know that if I stick my hand in a fire it’s going to burn me. I just don’t _care._ I can’t make myself afraid of something that doesn’t frighten me anymore, Dorian.”

The shape of his profile was truly something to behold, in that light. The sharp cut of his cheekbones, the stern slant of his brow. A kind of serious consideration that seemed somehow both unsuited to the man wearing it, and yet entirely appropriate in the intensity of its focus. Sometimes, after a night together, with Dorian slipping quietly back to his quarters, he would catch sight of his face as he slept and be stunned not by his looks—for though he _was_ attractive Dorian had been with many a fine man in his day—but by the uncomplicated openness in his features. Always throwing in as many false flags as he could so no one noticed how heavily he wore his heart on his sleeve.

Eventually he murmured, “…And in this metaphor, am I the fire?”

“Ye—wait.” Trevelyan turned back, puzzled and frowning. “Wait, that makes it sound different than I meant. I mean you are, but the—the metaphor’s referring to us—it’s _not_ referring to—"

Dorian muffled his words with his lips, holding his face steady in both hands as he moved against him. He could feel more than hear his surprise, a vibrant hum that deepened from the back of his throat when Dorian moved one hand to sift fingers through his hair and the other to push him to lie down on the bed.

He did so, with no resistance.

The mattress was every bit as plush and inviting as it looked, though admittedly Dorian was getting that secondhand from the very warm and inviting man underneath him who was wrapping arms around his waist to hold him fast. His nerves were jumping now, driving him to drink him in as though he were lost in a desert and Trevelyan was his only water. He felt a hand reach up to brush over the hairs on the back of his neck, felt teeth teasing his lower lip as the kiss grew less controlled. A quiver traveled down his spine.

When he finally pulled away to give them both room to breathe, Trevelyan looked rather like he was blissed out on lyrium.

“You will have to forgive me,” Dorian murmured finally once he’d gotten some air back in his lungs, tracing lines over his chest, “That you’ve been so candid with your feelings all this time, and I’ve never said it back.”

“The first time I said it,” Trevelyan sat up a little on his elbows, voice soft. “I wasn’t trying to say it out loud. I just knew it then, so intensely, and I wasn’t used to…feeling that much. I thought you might laugh at me. …I worried you would laugh at me. I think if you did, I might—not have said it again.”

And the thought of that was so terribly sad, wasn’t it? “I would never laugh at you.”

A slight, snarling smirk twitched on his lips. Those lips he wanted to kiss again, flushed dark. “Now, that’s a bald-faced lie.”

Dorian was too wound up to grin back, only pecking him again quickly. “Well, I would never laugh at _that **.**_ ”

“And that is why I—” He paused, cleared his throat. “You know.”

“I suppose I do, don’t I?” The implications seemed to pound at him in waves, his expression fluctuating as his throat tightened. “And it didn’t…bother you that every time you said it, the phrase went unreturned?”

“I wasn’t expecting it to be.” He caught the brief flash of hurt that went through Dorian’s face at that, and hurriedly amended, “I know you care. I know you care more deeply than you let on. But caring is…frightening. It’s only love when the fear goes away. If it hasn’t for you, then…I don’t want you saying it. Even if it means I…never hear it.” As though realizing the admission was a little too vulnerable, he coughed and added, voice a forced casual, “And I know what amatus means, which I suppose isn’t the same thing but the sentiment is there, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Dorian replied, trailing his thumb down Trevelyan’s cheek. “The sentiment is there.”

Emboldened, he continued, “Besides. I’m not so oblivious that I don’t see the implications in you hearing a man saying he loves you and assuming it’s not real. Rather makes me want to find the men you’ve been with before me and throttle them. I’ve been kind of wanting to do that anyway. I’m terribly possessive.”

A strangled chuckle escaped him at that. “Dear Amatus, you cannot solve everything by killing people.”

The slight shiver that went through Trevelyan when he said the word ‘amatus’ did not go unnoticed. “I can solve a surprising amount of things with killing people.”

“And it would be a long list, besides.”

“It’s a good thing then that I _like_ killing.”

“Oh hush.” Dorian gripped his chin so they were properly looking at each other, trying to ignore his quickening heartbeat. “You can’t go around slaying random magisters and their sons just for me.”

The rain cracked down on the window panes, water sluicing off the glass as the storm raged. And Trevelyan merely looked at him, all smile dropping entirely from his face. It was hard to describe what his expression was—in any other context, Dorian might have called it murderous. His voice sounded raw, rough. “There is _nothing_ I would not do for you, Dorian Pavus.”

Panic. Not at the devotion, but at knowing what it was doing to him to hear it. “You—you can’t say that,” he laughed, the chuckle weak, a paltry attempt at seeming casual again. “What if I had you enslaving innocents for Tevinter or something?”

The cocky grin returned. “But you would never ask me to do that. …You see? I have no need for fear, and that is why it’s love.”

That word again. The word he’d never thought he’d hear someone say and mean.

Said by a man whose favorite pastime was putting himself in the path of giants just to knock them down, who held in his hands the entire fate of Thedas and yet never seemed to take his responsibilities more seriously than the look he was giving Dorian right then.

“You…You’re absolutely right, you…” His breath came in a sigh, eyes burning, face flushing. “You terrify me.”

Trevelyan leaned up, kissing him hard with a smile on his lips.

From somewhere deeper in the manor, something moaned like it was dying.

Both of them snapped apart and turned to look in the direction of the sound, everything whirling away as they jolted alert and ready.

After what felt like an entire tense minute of listening and hearing nothing more, Dorian let out a heavy breath and finally flopped down on the bed next to Trevelyan, who automatically moved just a little bit to make room for him. He didn’t even need to. Frankly the bed was large enough that if either of them were so inclined (they weren’t) they could have had a threesome with Iron Bull in there and still had room.

“…I know what you’re thinking. I can’t say it’s not my fault,” he said as he felt fingers starting to sift through his hair, carefully ruining at least an hour of styling work he’d done that morning. “But I have already had as much…excitement as I can stand with this terrible, ornate crypt. And the thought of what’s out there doesn’t necessarily inspire one to…romance.”

Trevelyan blinked at him for a moment before all sentimentality was washed clean, and he rolled to face him, eyes impish once more. “Awwww…You mean death and corpses don’t get you in the mood? I expected more from a necromancer.”

He scowled and pinched him in the side, sending his ghoulish lover into another fit of giggles. As he did so Dorian moved to extinguish the candles once more.

Almost immediately the bed dipped closer to him, and he found himself being held fast by two very warm, strong arms, hot breath on the back of his neck. “I think I’m owed a body pillow, then.”

“You heathen. The indignities you subject me to.” The grip around him made it impossible to turn around and kiss Trevelyan on the cheek, so he had to settle for kissing the exposed skin of his arm. “You’re quite lucky this place is drafty enough that I need your body heat.”

Trevelyan hummed against his neck and said only, “I love you, Dorian.”

Just like that. Innocently, earnestly, like it was the most uncomplicated thing in the world.

As he drifted off in his furnace embrace, Dorian realized that he still hadn’t said it back.

But it was alright. He would when he was ready. And he would make sure it was clear how much he really meant it when he did.

The next morning, the two of them woke to the sound of something heavy and squishily rotted throwing itself against the door.

**Author's Note:**

> I fully expect my dragon age muse to go the way of my other fanfiction inspirations and dry up once my larger fic is done (at least, until the next game comes out), so maybe it’s best to get these little ficlets out while I can as I'm working on maintaining my inspiration base, even if I’m not totally satisfied with them.
> 
> The nature of this one shifted a bit during production—originally it was going to be a love letter to the Chateau d’Onterre quest overall, and then I got very fixated on the scene I’d written at the end, and then by that point I realized that anything that detailed their explorations in-depth would just be padding and hard to write.
> 
> Anyway! Hope you enjoyed!


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